<p>I've heard a lot about curves at UW and I still don't understand how it works. I'm wondering for Chem 142 specifically. Let's say the mean for an exam is 75/100 and the standard deviation is 17, how much would you need to get an A on that exam? How does grading on a curve work in general? Thanks.</p>
<p>Are you in my Chem section?! That was the score distribution for my class, haha. </p>
<p>And I was wondering the same thing: I’ve heard that two standard deviations above the mean is an A, but it doesn’t seem like that calculation would work for this particular exam… So does that mean * more * people get an A, or fewer? If anyone could chime in on this, that’d be great!</p>
<p>Haha, are you in 142B?! Yeah, I heard the same thing so now I’m very confused. </p>
<p>Mid-70s is a pretty normal exam mean and probably correlates to somewhere between 2.5-2.7. Based on past experiences, I would guess that ~90% overall in the course will get you ~3.5 and 95% a ~3.8. That’s the rule of thumb I’ve used, unless the course is unusually hard or unusually easy.</p>
<p>Generally, if you can stay 1 SD above the mean on exams, you’re in very good shape. If not, there’s always the final to save you (it has for me on more than one occasion).</p>